


Nothing Good Comes of Cursed Blood

by BARALAIKA



Category: King of Fighters
Genre: Developing Relationship, Hair Washing, Homelessness, M/M, Nipple Piercings, Scents & Smells
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-15 18:06:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16068473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BARALAIKA/pseuds/BARALAIKA
Summary: ... but Shingo is determined to try his luck anyway. Will he manage to befriend Iori Yagami and survive? (Nothing Explicit yet, but will be. Expect it. Just hang in with me on this one, okay? ❤︎)





	1. (Concept)

I really love the concept of Shingo being low-key obsessed with Iori. Almost as if his infatuation with Kyo shifts onto wanting the intensity of the Kusanagi-Yagami blood feud to inform his fighting, then on to raw attraction.  
  
Iori’s not stupid, he knows he has a stalker and Shingo is hardly subtle. He tries to act offended and defensive when he’s caught, but Iori’s so utterly uninterested that he disappears before Shingo is done blustering. It only seems to work when he pursues Iori as a person.  
  
Shingo does weird shit like showing up at his gigs. Vice and Mature catch him skulking about the late night stores that Iori uses, find him scouting out the buildings he’d been staying in.  
  
 _“What do you want with him, boy?”  
“It can’t be anything good, you know that?”  
“Mm, no… nothing good comes of cursed blood…”  
“Nothing good at all.”_  
Vice and Mature just give him the creeps.  
  
But all he wants to do is listen to him. Hang out with him. Giving him a hug was  _really_ pushing it, but seeing somebody in such clear, obvious pain… Shingo couldn’t bear it! It was stupid to think that he could fix someone whose problems were as complex as Iori’s, but… maybe he could have tried?  
  
  
“Look. Don’t bother. It’s a bad idea.”  
  
“Why, though?”  
  
He was cornered in a convenience store next to marked down sandwiches and instant coffee, his bass on his back and a weary scowl on his face. Iori was tired and it showed, badly; deep circles under his eyes from days without proper sleep, a shirt ironed with hair straighteners after sleeping in it, a judder to his hands from not eating properly.  
  
“You really want to know?” Iori asked, with a worrying finality.  
  
Shingo nodded, took the sandwich boxes from Iori and smiled up at him. Iori didn’t have it in him to smile back, but he nodded a little and besides, if his first meal in days was being paid for, he was anybody’s bitch.


	2. This Isn't a Game

“This isn’t a game, you know.” Iori didn’t look impressed with the bag that Shingo offered out to him, but his stomach was hurting and he was, truly grateful. “You don’t just feed me and make me think you’re great.”

All Shingo did was beam up at him.

“I know! I didn’t think that! I just wanna make sure you’re okay, you know?”

“Mm,” Iori grunted. That was about as close to ‘thanks’ as he was going to get for now. He tilted his head aside as a signal for Shingo to follow him and they trudged through the building by the dim light of a wind-up torch, to a soundtrack of groaning pipes and dripping water. Casually, Iori ate half of a katsu sandwich as they navigated around suspicious puddles, broken piles of wood and jagged metal and some seriously grim smells, but he seemed to be immune to it.

Shingo trotted along next to him, eyes shifting nervously.

“Heh... y-you ever thought it looks like a movie in here? Like, uh...”

“What, like a horror movie?” Iori replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah! It’s, uh. Atmospheric.”

“What, you scared there’s someone else here? A killer or a monster?” Shingo’s wary smile said everything. Iori simply scoffed and took another bite of bread and pork. “You watch too much TV.”

“But! If there was, you’d get them, right?”

Iori chewed thoughtfully and ducked his head under a low-hanging pipe. He swallowed and sucked at his teeth.

“... Maybe. How’d you know it isn’t me?”

The last thing Shingo saw before the torch died was Iori’s unsettling smile.


	3. Moved On

There was a duffel bag across his back that night, his air mattress in its canister tied to the bottom, his bass case in one hand and a carry-all stuffed with cables in the other.  
  
“Oh. Hey.”  
  
“Huh? Is everything okay, Yagami?”  
  
Iori resisted the urge to say something pointed, but instead swallowed his words back down and rose his hands a little, gesturing to his luggage.  
  
“Been moved on. Guy with a dog’s around, surprised they didn’t see you,” Iori said, and started to walk the way that Shingo came from. “Nobody gives a shit about somewhere for ages, then they suddenly do. C’mon.”  
  
“Where are we going?”  
  
“Dunno.”  
  
It was hard remembering Yagami’s situation sometimes, Shingo realised. He walked in pace with him and reached out without thinking and took the carry-all from Iori, who...  _let him_. It was only when they were walking away from the industrial area that he realised the significance of the gesture and that their fingers had  _touched!_ He swallowed, trying not to get too ahead of himself.  
  
“There’s a park near here, wanna eat there?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
They sat beneath a lamppost, on a bench with arm rests on to stop people from sleeping on them. Iori set everything down with a grunt and sighed when he sat, let his long legs sprawl out in front of him and looked down at what Shingo brought. That night, it was reduced sushi sets and some of the last pastries of the day-- the good stuff-- and some cereal bars. They ate in silence that was almost companionable, or rather not completely hostile.  
  
“You can come back to my dorm if you want,” Shingo finally broke the silence. “Or... or I can at least look after your bass and stuff, i-if you’re not comfortable staying. I want you to be safe, but your stuff too! I know it means a lot to you,” he blathered, trying to think of Iori’s boundaries but also not be creepy but also be supportive and gah! It was all too much!  
  
He was met with silence as Iori chewed on a convenience store California roll.  
  
“... yeah. I’ll come get my bass tomorrow. We’re playing at the hotel all evening, can I get a shower?”  
  
Shingo balked!  
  
“Oh! Yeah! Y-Yeah, of course! Uh, I’m free all afternoon, so--”  
  
“I’ll be by at three,” Iori stated, but paused a moment. He looked up and finally caught Shingo by the eyes for the first time all evening; he was tired as hell and rough around the edges, sick of everything and waiting patiently for death, but for the first time ever, the corner of his mouth twitched. “... thanks.”  
  
Shingo overcompensated for them both with the biggest grin known to mankind.  
  
“It’s okay!! I’ll look after it really well! Do you need any washing?”  
  
Iori shook his head and let his mouth fall back into a downturned line, then went back to his food. He wasn’t sure about this feeling. As if someone gave a shit. As if someone wanted to... look after him, if even just a bit? A sudden sense of doubt crept up his spine while something dark and cruel bit at the back of his brain, but he quashed it before it had the chance to grow. He hoped.  
  
When they were finished eating, Iori and Shingo parted ways. Shingo carried his bass with utter reverence and slung his carry-all over his shoulder, then scurried off into the night, leaving Iori to figure out where to go.  
  
At least it wasn’t raining.


	4. Never Allowed to be Sentimental

He showed up at three o’clock, bang on. Shingo had set up a vigil in his dorm’s entrance hall at half past two and had to pretend that he hadn’t been standing directly behind the frosted door when Iori arrived. His hand was barely off the buzzer when Shingo hauled the door open and was grinning like an idiot.  
  
“Hey Yagami! You okay?”  
  
Iori did  _not_ look okay. He didn’t seem to have gotten much, if any, sleep the night prior and was significantly grubbier than he was when Shingo left him. All the same, he nodded and walked on in, shifting his bag on his back.  
  
“Well, uh, I’m on the top floor so we can take the elevator! It’s really nice up there. They’re all personal studios so there won’t be anybody bursting in or anything and I have my own bathroom, so you won’t be bothered. When’s your gig?”  
  
“Six.”  
  
“Oh, that’s plenty of time!”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
It wasn’t unusual for Iori to be in a mood, but Shingo hadn’t seen him  _this_ weary before. He leant against the bar in front of the mirror in the elevator and was quiet, eyes downturned and almost sliding shut. In close quarters, Shingo could smell him. The poor guy was in bad need of a shower, but there was something about it that Shingo didn’t seem to mind. It was good. Iori... smelt  _good._ He swallowed and Iori’s eyes flicked towards him as if he’d caught Shingo in the act and made the kid jump like fuck!  
  
All he did was huff through his nose and let his eyes close.  
  
Iori was yanked back awake by the ding of the elevator and Shingo chirping something as he got his keys. He didn’t really hear, but followed him to one of many identical doors, let him unlock it and stepped into the bright little room. It was nice, for a dorm. Pretty much no more than a bed, a wall of desk, a kitchenette and a bathroom, but it was packed to the brim with Shingo’s assorted clutter and lovingly decorated with his university sports teams, KoF trinkets and boyish hang-ons like mecha kits and action figures.  
  
He’d never had anything like this. Iori was taken aback a moment by it all, the density of items overwhelming as he took it all in. It was like absorbing Shingo as a person. The things he loved, the people he treasured. Iori stepped towards his bed and found himself looking down at a handmade blanket folded neatly at the end, a solar-powered waving plant on the window ledge above, a stack of books, a tablet with a cracked corner. A childhood soft toy peeked out from next to his pillow-- some sort of dog, Iori supposed. Black bead eyes stared up at him, still glossy, reflecting back at him.  
  
No. He had never been allowed to be sentimental, his father made sure of that.  
  
Something scratched at the back of Iori’s head. It was tempting to listen to it.  
  
“Yagami?”  
  
Shingo’s voice was ever so small, but it still made Iori jump and whip around on his heel far too quickly to be human, his hand raised to strike until he realised who it was. With a yelp, Shingo flinched back and held up a towel in front of him as if it would protect him!   
  
“Ah...” Iori couldn’t even form a word as he relaxed and gave Shingo an apologetic look. He took the towel as it was offered to him.  
  
“I-It’s okay! You’re tired! I shouldn’t sneak up on you! Um... the shower is really easy, just turn it however far how hot you want it, okay?”  
  
Iori nodded and put his bags down, then threw his heavy coat down onto it, removed his shoes and padded off to the bathroom. When the door clicked behind him, Shingo waited until he heard water start running before leaning down to feel Iori’s body heat as it faded from the lining of his coat. Lightly, he sniffed at it and was rewarded with leather and sweat, both fresh and stale, warm and worn. He leant down far enough to touch his nose to it and took a deep inhalation of Iori’s scent and shuddered... then caught himself and what he was doing.  
  
 _What the hell, dude? Don’t be so weird!_ Guiltily, Shingo stood and went over to his small fridge, opened it and pulled out the food he’d picked up at lunch for them to bring it up to room temperature.  _Don’t be weird. He won’t like it. Don’t fuck this up, okay?_  
  
But Shingo’s face crumpled as he listened to Iori through the thin wall, his steps in the shower cubicle thudding. His heart ached for him and he wished he could carry some of his burden, if just a little bit.  
  
 _You don’t do that by sniffing someone’s clothes, do you?_  
  
No. Not usually.


	5. Overthinking It

Shingo stayed in his kitchenette, leant against the counter that backed onto the shared wall with the bathroom. Listening to Iori moving around in the shower was taking his mind off to inappropriate places and he had to keep stopping himself from meandering too far off on a path he’d regret.  
  
Were they getting closer? Was this trust?  
  
He was probably overthinking it, like usual. On the table in front of him sat sandwich sets-- one crammed with different cold meats, the other with different katsu and sauces. Iori was a meat eater, but Shingo didn’t know which type he’d prefer, so he just bought both and some soda. What seemed so normal to him was more of a luxury to Yagami... did he really make so little money that he couldn’t live somewhere? Or did he choose to stay away?  
  
The thought of it upset Shingo that little bit more. He’d seen something of Iori that few ever had before, back when Kyo was missing and alongside Benimaru, staged a daring rescue... but then he’d gone back to his usual self, seething with a staged hatred and frothing at the mouth as if it were a pantomime. In the space of those few harrowing days, he showed himself to be more than his blood. He could be kind. He could be gentle. He cared so much and could be so brave--  
  
“Oi. Yabuki. You got somewhere for a hair dryer?”  
  
\-- and he was so handsome. Even when he looked like a soaked rat, with his hair flopped around his face after just a cautionary towelling and towel wrapped around his skinny hips. Iori still looked completely wrecked, but now he was clean. He’d lost his greasy sheen and the near-permanent grubbiness to his hands and cleaned under his nails, but his shoulders were still too heavy for him and lifting his arm to run through his hair was a labour in itself. He started sweeping it forwards as he walked to his duffle bag and crouched without a fuck to give that Shingo could see his ass crack, since he wasn’t expecting him to be looking.  
  
“Yeah! Uh, next to the bed, there’s some,” Shingo stammered. He scuttled past and (intentionally badly) busied himself with unplugging his chargers as Iori found himself some clothes. It wasn’t until he heard a zip go up that Shingo stood, only to meet Iori giving him a flat look.  
  
“Really giving you trouble, huh?” Iori asked, but Shingo was stunned into silence; he held a hair dyer and a par of straighteners out to him, but had to jiggle them to get Shingo to take them. “I have a job for you.”  
  
Dumbstruck, Shingo took the straighteners and dryer and plugged them in, then turned back to Iori... only to see a mirror, combs and some rather scary-looking gel and hair spray. Iori was going to do his hair here. And... he wanted him to help? Oh geez. He took things as they were offered to him and set them on his bed, where apparently they were going to sit. It made sense, right? Lots of light? Iori didn’t have a problem with it and made himself comfortable, set up his mirror and started to comb his hair forwards.  
  
“Watch,” came his command. Shingo did not need to be told twice.  
  
Iori took a scoop of hair with his comb and kicked his dryer up to hot, then slowly drew the heat down the length. He watched what he was doing with one eye, making sure every last suggestion or possibility of a wave was taken out with heat. Shingo was hypnotised by it all. Iori’s hair was still bright and vivid, recently dyed without the roots showing through too badly. He found himself transfixed on his arms as he worked, on his muscles shifting beneath his skin and how they pushed his veins to the surface on the flex and fell again when relaxing. That he was allowed to be so close when Iori was so bare... it was a difficult feeling to describe, but it left him feeling hazy and light-headed, tight in the chest and with a stupid smile in his heart.  
  
It was also an excuse to stare at Iori’s face. His sharp, harsh lined construction; the edge to his eyes and the bags beneath them; the soft swell of his lips and the dry lines and chap where they’d split; the furrow in his brow that was already scoring lines into his forehead; his thick eyelashes and the shadows they cast.  
  
“See? You can do the back,” Iori said, the dryer suddenly quiet and Shingo snapped out of his staring. “Make sure it’s straight and starts going forwards around here,” he gestured about his ear. “Go on.”  
  
Shingo took the hair dryer and nodded, then knelt carefully behind Iori and his incredible back. His neck was so thick... and his shoulders so wide. How was it that he could be such a shape? He clicked the dryer on and started mimicking how he’d seen Iori work his hair before he’d fallen into staring. It was a bit harder than it looked; he needed to shift around to get the right angle, then set about pulling it outwards to make sure it was dry all the way through. He went over and over some parts and yet Iori didn’t complain about the heat. He sat through it as still as a rock with complete trust in Shingo.  
  
 _Why would he give that to me?_  
  
Perhaps it was all the sandwiches.  
  
He smiled a little to himself as he started on Iori’s lengthy sides and started pushing them forwards, poker straight and silken. When he was sure he was finished, he combed through the full back of Iori’s hair, sure to rake his head and gently, as if test-touching a snake, rubbed the base of his neck with the comb... then dared to run his hand up through his hair. It was to feel if any was damp, of course. But a soft grunt caught the back of Iori’s throat and sent shocks through Shingo’s body.  
  
Iori was so relaxed that for once, somebody touching his head wasn’t awful. He’d welcomed it, consented to it,  _asked_ for it... and hadn’t meant to made a sound. It slipped out without him realising, too tired to hold himself back. He inhaled through his nose as if waking up and looked around to Shingo.  
  
“Are you done?”  
  
“Ah, y-yeah. Just checking for... damp.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
Phew. He’d gotten away with it. Whatever ‘it’ was. Why did something so small seem like such a big deal? Already, Shingo knew that it would be keeping him up at night and replay in his anxiety dreams.  
  
“I’m done! What’s next?” He chirped, as Iori reached for the hair products. Ah. This looked like the hard part.  
  
“You have to bake the gel to get it to stay up. Watch.” Iori ran gel through the first section of his quiff-to-be, then took the hair dryer to it briefly. When it was hot, he switched to the straighteners. Slowly, he dragged the burning hot plates up his sodden hair as the gel crackled and hissed viciously, but by the end of it, it stuck out straight in front of him! “You heat, I’ll straighten.”  
  
Shingo nodded dumbly and gripped the dryer.  
  
They worked together as a unit, with Iori finding the layers he needed, Shingo holding any excess aside and the process of gelling, heating and straightening going off without a hitch. There was no time to ogle or get lost in thoughts! It was serious business and both of them were set on getting Iori’s striking hairstyle right the first time. When each section was together, Iori set about gluing them all together with gel and heat, working through until it was solid and stayed in place without a problem. His sides were much easier, with the back needing minimal setting. Spray, set. Spray, set.  
  
And like that, he was done.  
  
Shingo stepped back to admire their work and grinned at Iori with a thumbs-up.  
  
“It’s perfect!”  
  
Iori nodded to himself in the mirror, then to Shingo. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards and he huffed through his nose just enough to count as something resembling a laugh.  
  
“Yeah. Thank you,” he managed and returned the thumbs up. Iori stood to start to clean up, but wobbled on his feet and immediately sat back down, head spinning. “Ugh...”  
  
“Yagami, are you okay? Lay down, I’ll get this. Um... I got you some sandwiches! H-How about you rest a little, before the gig? You won’t be able to perform all evening like this,” Shingo fretted, as he took the equipment away from Iori and unplugged it. He set the straighteners aside to cool and put his mirror, products and comb alongside them and then gestured back at his bed. “I’ll wake you up in time. I just have to do some work, so I’ll be right here. I-If that’s okay. ... with you, that is.”  
  
There wasn’t much choice. Iori massaged his forehead and nodded, then laid down on Shingo’s sheets. His hair was crunchy at the back, matte and smooth, and left no trace on the pillow, just the strange, almost sickly scent of ‘pleasant’ that cosmetics tended to have. When his eyes slid shut, he was gone in moments, finally clean and safe,  _able_ to relax for once.  
  
Shingo quietly drew up his chair, sat at his desk and tried to work.


	6. We've Sung About Fucking For the Last Five Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no official material about Iori's band, so I decided to make some bandmates up. They're not going to dominate the story, so don't worry about me pulling a Tetsuya Nomura and making it about them!

Long, slow breaths and the rise and fall of a tight, strong chest.

Shingo watched as Iori slept, focusing far too much on him and not enough on his work. How strange that he laid still and still as a board to sleep, barely moving save that rise and fall. He felt as if he had to check that Iori was still alive every few minutes when his breaths fell lighter and his eyelids twitched from rapid movement behind them.

What did he dream of, Shingo wondered. All he could do was imagine. Perhaps it was where he had peace. Brief snippets of calm that he woke from, only to be returned to the turmoil and constant struggle. Or was that where the Orochi sunk its teeth into him? He hated to think of what that could possibly mean, of the horrors that demons would reveal and revel in for the sake of torturing him. They wanted his body and they wanted his mind and would stop at nothing to get it, but what were its limits?  
  
It also gave him the time to notice something he’d never caught before; Iori’s nipples were pierced, the perfect pink buds framed by silver steel balls. That had to have hurt! How could he have done that...? Shingo couldn’t even imagine what piercing his ears would have felt like, let alone something so sensitive. Did Iori have more?   
  
Iori took a sharp intake of breath and tilted his head towards Shingo suddenly enough to make the lad jump and look away lest he was caught staring!  
  
He needed to do some work. That was the point where it was really needed.  
  
  
  
A silent alarm vibration against his leg brought Shingo out of his essay writing zone and made him check the time.  
  
“Yagami? It’s time to get ready,” he called, a little over his usual speaking voice and watched as Iori stirred. He stood and shuffled around the room, making the kind of low-level noise that was easy enough to wake up to as Iori’s eyes opened and he sighed, bleary. “Wanna eat? I got sandwiches.”  
  
A hazy red eye watched as Shingo held up two sets. Right in there, huh? Iori found it all quite endearing, if confusing, in his twilight state and nodded a little-- Shingo took it as a cue to come over with both of them to show him their contents wordlessly. Cold meats or katsu... and Iori reached up to tap the katsu box. Neatly, Shingo placed it on his stomach and walked away, leaving Iori to wake up.  
  
What a bizarre experience.  
  
Iori forced himself to sit up and caught his sandwich box before it tumbled to the floor, then rubbed at his eyes. The nap had helped significantly and he didn’t feel quite as bad as he had previously, but food and drink was sure to clear up his headache. Just as if he’d read his mind, Shingo came over with a bottle of soda and snuck it into Iori’s lap as he munched on a sandwich. This really  _was_ the best he’d been looked after for a very long time, but the better things went, the more he worried. His dreams had not been good.  
  
 _The sound of Shingo crying and the snap of his bones, the splatter of his blood and his flesh torn open. His handsome face smashed to a pulp and his intestines pulled out from him in handfuls. The taste of them in Iori’s mouth._  
  
He pushed the thought from his head as he ate, eyes closed, as he scowled down at the floor.  
  
“We need to go soon,” Shingo chirped from the kitchenette.  
  
“We?”  
  
“Yeah! I wanna watch you guys play. Is that okay?”  
  
Iori mustered something between a nod and a shrug as he stuffed the last sandwich in his mouth and stood to find some clothes. A black shirt with the fewest stains on went best with his white jeans and he threw his coat back on over the top, then grabbed his bass case and cable bag as Shingo swept around the place. Once more, Shingo took the cable bag from Iori and met no resistance. With one last check, they left.  
  
  


* * *

 

The hotel was fairly upmarket without being excessively fancy, so Shingo didn’t feel  _too_ bad about sitting around in the lounge bar with his work while Iori and his band performed. They were performing the background music to drinks and light food with chatter and laughter over the top of it all so it wasn’t anything terribly intense-- a good few hours’ work for a decent pay.  
  
Their frontwoman was a slim, pretty young woman with features sharp enough to cut, who sung with such range that Shingo could barely believe it was her all of the time. She swung between such light sweetness and rich huskiness as she wrapped her tongue around English and Japanese with all the practise of a professional, even if he barely understood her when she switched. She wore a tight, short black dress with a crisp white shirt either under it or sewn into it and stockings just dark enough to tease, along with some vicious black stiletto heels. She was magnetic as always.  
  
On the drums as usual was their guy who looked like he taught at an art school. He never seemed to wear anything other than black turtlenecks and black jeans, but he drummed like a demon and when he turned his head, a nose stud glinted in one side.  
  
A girl with a buzzcut played the saxophone, long wisps of hair left by her ears. She was the most obviously a punk out of them all with that wild hair, but she dressed nearly identically to Iori in clean cuts and simple colours, smart and edgy in the fashionable sense. She toured their small stage with her instrument to visit other members of the band, striding on her immaculate Chelsea boots while a trumpet hung on her back. Seemed she was the one who multi-tasked, but he’d heard it mentioned she had perfect pitch or something like that. Either way, it looked cool as hell!  
  
Their lead guitarist was a rough-looking guy who had western-style tattoos under his long sleeves. Shingo had seen them before when he’d run across them all smoking and he’d rolled his sweater up, which immediately made him cool as hell and very dangerous. They’d clearly neatened him up for the hotel that night, but the deep furrow in his brow was one of a metalhead who punished the ever-loving fuck out of his instruments.  
  
All of them together were enchanting and Iori looked truly relaxed and at home. They’d actually gotten half a smile out of him when they arrived!  
  
“Who’s this, Yagami?” Asked their saxophonist, “you gonna share him with us yet or is he still your little secret?” She winked down at Shingo and he’d blushed, laughed nervously and made everybody else cackle. Save Iori.  
  
He didn’t look best pleased with her, but he never did.  
  
“This is Yabuki. He does the tournament as well, he’s been... looking out for me. We go way back,” Iori explained and Shingo’s chest swelled; he beamed at the bandmates, who gawked at him in disbelief.  
  
“Woah. You know people other than us? That’s crazy,” the singer teased, and wrapped herself around Iori’s spare arm to lead him away. “C’mon, let’s get you set up. Oh, you smell  **good** today...” _  
_  
He’d nodded to them all as they went to set up their equipment and he settled down with his essay and a soda that he planned to nurse for as long as possible.  
  
But then, when they were in full swing... it was amazing. Shingo was glued to their performance, lost to the way that Iori swayed and ran his hand up and down the strings of his bass, how he knew it like an extension of his body and made it look so utterly effortless.  
  
Every now and then, Iori looked up from his smoky gaze at the hotel carpet and caught Shingo’s eye. When the boy grinned... he dipped his head each time, eyes pushing up at the bottom. Even that was enough to make Shingo totally melt! Iori had a microphone of his own and sang with the frontwoman at times in his bassy croon, songs of love and loss and city nights that wound down as the night did. Shingo didn’t want them to stop, but it had been a long night for them! Sips of water between songs were just enough to keep their frontwoman going and luckily they had Shingo on hand to slink over with refills. Was he their first groupie?  
  
  
The frontwoman snuck away for a while to rest her voice and her feet, leaving the others to do an instrumental set. Naturally, she made a beeline for Shingo and invited herself to sit down next to him as he was looking away, staring at Iori as if his life hung in the balance. Saxophone girl had assumed the role of vocalist at that point and led the others.  
  
“Hey, baby boy~” she purred, and frightened the poor lad out of his skin!  
  
“ _Oh!_ Oh,  _gosh!_ Oh, I... I’m really sorry!” Garbled Shingo as he tried to pull himself back together again and leant slightly away from her intrusive press. Her smile was sickly sweet and perhaps more than just a bit forced-- she was difficult to read and had an air of danger to her that was more than a little bit exciting.  
  
“Mm... so,” she was straight to business. “What’s the deal with you and Yagami? You’re stalking him. Or you’re stalking  _us_. I don’t like it. It’s freaking Yurie out and she’s playing like shit. So are you fucking him or do you want to fuck someone else?”  
  
A look of utter horror dawned across Shingo’s face; he went red and without being able to hold them back, tears started to gloss at his eyes in indignation, shame and guilt all that once.  
  
Ah. She’d been a bit hard on him. Just in case it was all an act, she held firm... and realised it wasn’t when his breath came out in a shudder.  
  
“I... I didn’t mean to upset Yurie, I’m not trying to stalk anybody, I promise,” Shingo croaked as he tried not to break down bawling and it was then that the singer realised she’d taken the wrong approach. He was younger than his muscles made him look and with his face on the verge of crumpling, it was clear that he was only a year or two out of high school. “And I’m not...  _you know_... with Yagami. I’m just...”  
  
The singer folded her hands in her lap and let her expression soften, if just slightly.  
  
“... I see. Did, uh... you want to or something? You’ve been staring at him all night. You even got a reaction out of him,” she scoffed and half-smiled. “ _I_  don’t even get a reaction out of him and we’ve sung about fucking for the last five years.”  
  
Shingo smiled at that and tried to will his eyes to stop watering. He stayed red, though, so she was on the right track.  
  
“I don’t really have any advice,” she continued. “He only lets me touch him because I wouldn’t stop touching  _him._ He only talks when you get beers in him and even then, he doesn’t say much. You’ve chosen the most difficult guy, but good news, he likes dick so you’ve hit most of the mark,” shrugged the singer. “I’m telling you this because he’s a good friend despite being... well, himself. Have you been feeding him?”  
  
“Y-yeah.”  
  
“Good, that’s how I did it too,” she smirked. “Anyway. I better get back to them, there’s still two hours to go. Enjoy the show, yeah? And look at me some time, too! ❤︎”  
  
Shingo just nodded and tried to smile back at her as she got up, but somebody was definitely not smiling.  
  
Up on the stage, Iori was scowling.


	7. Give Him The Chance

“... what was Maika saying to you?” Iori asked, when they were a block away from the hotel. The temperature had dropped but they weren’t in a rush. He looked the kind of tired that Shingo had only ever felt during exam season... but it seemed like this was how he always lived.  
  
“Huh?” Shingo looked at him, suddenly nervous.  
  
“In the black dress. She spoke to you on her voice break.”  
  
“Oh, it... was nothing, really--”  
  
“I know it was about me.”  
  
”... oh.” Busted.  
  
”She gets jealous. So... don’t let her freak you out,” Iori explained as he took a new cigarette out of his pocket and put it on his lip. “She doesn’t like people getting in the way of the band, or thinking anybody could be a distraction. Doesn’t even like partners coming to watch us play. Tch,” he scoffed, as he patted down for his lighter and sparked up.  
  
“Oh. Maika really cares about you, doesn’t she?” Shingo said, voice soft.  
  
Iori took a long draw of his cigarette, tilted his head back and let the smoke curl from his mouth, up into the bright street lights.  
  
“Yeah. She does.”  
  
“I’d love to have a friend like that. She’s really pretty, too!” Shingo beamed... and to his shock, Iori actually  _smiled_.  
  
“Yeah. She is. I prefer girls like Yurie though.”  
  
“Eh? With shaved hair?”  
  
“Mm. Masculine girls. And masculine guys. Just really like it,” Iori mused as he smoked, boots clicking against the pavement. “Who would you prefer?”  
  
 _Neither of them, Yagami._  
  
“Uhhh... I think Maika. Maybe. Or...” Shingo wasn’t convincing and despite how tired he was, Iori wasn’t stupid.  
  
“You prefer daddies, like our guitarist? He’s cool, right?”  
  
Shingo just laughed. “Yeah! I mean no! I mean, he’s cool! Not that I’d... c-c’mon, Yagami, don’t be mean!”  
  
Iori chuckled as he puffed away on his cigarette, while Shingo blushed himself into dizziness.  
  
  
The rest of the walk back to Shingo’s dorm block was companionably quiet, with Iori’s mood clearly improved. When the door clicked closed behind them, Shingo suddenly found himself exhausted and the happenings of the evening seemed to all catch up with hm in one big go. He and Iori dumped the bass and cables by the other bags and Shingo went about getting his pyjamas, while Iori made his bed. The canister he carried around opened and contained an air mattress, with the canister itself becoming a pump for it. He wrapped it in a sheet and threw a grubby sleeping bag onto it, then stripped down to his underwear as if it were his own home.  
  
While Shingo brushed his teeth, Iori found himself looking up at his shelves again.  
  
His textbooks had kanji that Iori couldn’t even read in the titles, but from what he understood, Shingo was studying sports therapy. He reached out and picked one up and browsed through; it covered the muscles and the skeleton in great depth, with the whole book dedicated to them alone. The diagrams were fascinating. Iori was rapt, staring into the complex systems that strung the human body together... and the bones beneath them.  
  
“We can’t really put a solid count on how many muscles we have,” Shingo chimed in from across the room. “About six-fifty to seven hundred skeletal muscles are named, but then there are hundreds others that aren’t and that we don’t really need to know the names of. Then it depends on if you count parts of muscles as their own, but you only need to know about three or four hundred for therapy. Cool, huh?”  
  
Iori nodded and shut the book, then stretched up to put it back. As he did, Shingo admired how cleanly-defined and strong Iori’s shoulders were, his axillary muscles... and the hair of his armpit, along with its scent as he drew closer. He’d been working hard all night and he smelt of it, but it wasn’t bad. No, it was good, a thousand times better than sniffing his coat had been...  
  
“I wanna work on sports rehab and stuff like that, y’know? Sports people are always gettin’ hurt, so it’s not like the job market’ll ever dry up. I’m still a student, but let me practise on your aches and pains, eh, Yagami?” Shingo grinned.  
  
“Heh. Yeah. I will,” Iori replied with a hint of a smile, then glanced down at Shingo. “Gonna take a piss.”  
  
Shingo nodded and stepped aside, surprised at Iori’s bluntness about something so... personal put in such an upfront way. He shrugged it off and padded to his bed, climbed in and brought the blind down to a comfortable level. It was one in the morning... shit. No wonder he was tired. He laid back in bed and didn’t mean to listen to Iori as he went about his ablutions, but it was impossible to miss him taking a leak-- even  _that_ sounded heavy and manly and Shingo’s dick twitched.  
  
 _Ohhhh no. No, no nonononono, not tonight, you don’t._  
  
Things he would have used as an anti-boner shield five years ago weren’t working any more, like big ripped dude chests or hairy, sweaty balls. He couldn’t think about manly things... and girls didn’t calm it down either. He just had to think about rocks or something.  
  
  
“I was thinking, Yagami, about what you said earlier,” Shingo started, peering over the side of his bed and down at where Iori was zipping himself in.  
  
“Mm?” Iori grunted, as he laid on his back, straight and still as a corpse in a coffin. He closed his eyes.  
  
“You... you like both guys and girls, right?”  
  
“Mm. Is that a problem?”  
  
“No! Gosh, no! No, I just...” Shingo huffed through his nose and ran his hand through his hair, embarrassed. “I... I thought it was just me.”  
  
“It’s more common than you think.” Iori’s eye opened and he tilted his head back to look at Shingo. “Don’t worry about it.”  
  
“O-Okay. I... don’t know how to meet guys, you know?”  
  
“Hm. I don’t either. They just seem to come to me. But... thanks for sharing that. Brave of you.”  
  
Shingo flushed red and grinned hopelessly, then rested his cheek on his hand. Being complimented by Iori seemed like such an event! The air between them hung heavy and he realised that they were still looking at each other, eyes connected, lips parted as if waiting for something to be said.  
  
That was it. It had to be this breath or he would miss his chance.  
  
Shingo drew his breath in.  
  
His mind raced.  
  
  
  
“... thanks! Night, Yagami.”  
  
“Night, Yabuki.”  
  
Shingo laid back and stared at the ceiling, as Iori shuffled his head back into place. He leant over and clicked the light off, then rolled onto his side and listened to Iori’s breath again.  _Idiot..._ or... no. No, he wasn’t an idiot, he had to wait. All he could do was make a protective barrier with his beefy legs to hide his cock away and stroke himself as quietly as he could, in time with Iori’s deepening, slowing breaths.  
  
In his dreams, Iori climbed into his bed alongside him and pressed his body into Shingo’s back, wrapped his arms around him and played with his cock as he sucked on his neck. They humped and groaned, as Shingo simply didn’t know what else they would do... but it was enough for him to know that he wanted it. Whatever Iori wanted, he wanted. He could do whatever was asked of him.  
  
If he would just give him the chance.


End file.
